Chelsea can cope without Drogba, says Cech

The Ivoirien, along with a clutch of his colleagues, including Salomon Kalou, John Mikel Obi and Michael Essien, is set to compete in the Africa Cup of Nations and could be absent for as long as five weeks from the end of this month.

But Cech is confident that the Blues have enough depth and quality to cope, as he told The London Informer: “I think we’ve been rotating players until now and we did very well, so we hope again this is going to be the case.

“Of course, we will miss those players, but we have time to prepare for January. We knew they were going to leave, so it’s just a case of coping. We have a squad with quality players, which will have a chance to play and they can do it for us.”

Chelsea faces Sunderland and Birmingham City at home, and travels to Hull City and Burnley during Drogba’s absence. It also faces Watford in the third round of the FA Cup.